ERIC EJ1068465: Entrepreneurship Training Programme in Universities and Graduates' Productivity in South-South Nigeria

2013·0.15 MB·English

by  ERIC

International Education Studies; Vol. 6, No. 7; 2013
ISSN 1913-9020 E-ISSN 1913-9039
Published by Canadian Center of Science and Education
Entrepreneurship Training Programme in Universities and Graduates’
Productivity in South-South Nigeria
Ngozika A. Oleforo1, Dominic Edema Oko2 & Eno G. Akpan1
1 Department of Curriculum Studies, Educational Management and Planning, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria
2 Early Childhood and Special Education, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria
Correspondence: Ngozika A. Oleforo, Department of Curriculum Studies, Educational Management and
Planning, University of Uyo, Uyo, Nigeria. Tel: [phone]. E-mail: [email protected]

Received: November 19, 2012 Accepted: November 20, 2012 Online Published: July 1, 2013
doi:10.5539/ies.v6n7p260 URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.5539/ies.v6n7p260

Abstract
Entrepreneurial training programme has to do with acquiring relevant skills in which an individual has to be
sensitized, motivated and guided to achieve self-reliance and self employment. The paper examined the
relevance of entrepreneurial training programme in the universities to graduates’ productivity. Three null
hypotheses were formulated. A sample size of 1200 graduates was randomly selected from the South-South
Geo-Political Zone in Nigeria. The instrument used for the study was Entrepreneurial Training Programme in the
Universities and Graduates Productivity Questionnaire (ETPUGPQ). The instrument was validated with the help
of three experts in vocational education. The corrected version was subjected to the test of reliability using
Cronbach Alpha, and the reliability co-efficient stood at 0.85 justifying the use of the instrument. The data
obtained were analyzed using Multiple Linear Regression at 0.05 alpha levels. It was found that entrepreneurial
training programme in the universities is significantly relevant to graduates’ productivity. Therefore, it was
concluded and recommended that the government and National University Commission (NUC) should make it
compulsory for faculties offering professional courses to encourage students participation in practical works.
Also it was recommended that Entrepreneurship Education curriculum should be developed to cater for the vast
changing needs of the labour market.
Keywords: Entrepreneurial training programme, Entrepreneurship Education curriculum
1. Introduction
Education is the bedrock for national development in Nigeria in terms of economy, science and technology,
social and cultural development. It is an instrument for human capital development. Accordingly, universities
and other skill development institutions are designed to train individuals, equip them with skills, knowledge,
attitudes and values that will enable them to contribute to national development. Nigeria has a lot of natural and
human resources and has invested significantly to set up universities with many facilities. There are many states,
federal and private universities in the country. However, one of the challenges that youths in the country contend
with is unemployment. The graduates from the universities are said to be unproductive. This has led to a
situation where those who are lucky to be employed are trained and retrained by their employers. Oladapo and
Ike (2010) supported this fact by stating that in Nigeria when locally trained engineers, for example, are
employed, they are usually made to undergo training within the company and sometimes outside the country
before they are assigned any significant roles to perform.
Adequate entrepreneurship training is believed to be the only solution to equipping the students with skills that
can make them productive. Kauffman Foundation (2009) defined entrepreneurship training as the process of
providing individuals with knowledge and skills to recognize opportunities that others have over-looked to have
insight, self esteem and knowledge to act where others have hesitated. It includes institution of opportunity
recognition marshalling resources in the face of risk and initiating a business venture. According to
Madumere-Obike and Abraham (2008), entrepreneurship training enhances creativity in technical and vocational
skills and inculcates in the individuals the abilities that are necessary for them to be self-reliant through formal
education. One of the objectives of entrepreneurship training is to provide students with skills and motivations in
order to enhance entrepreneurial endeavour in any enterprise of their choice. Etuk and Ekpo (2008) affirmed
that:
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Entrepreneurship brings together the factors of production, human, land, labour, capital to make products
for public development and consumption. It incorporates the willingness and ability of a person to explore
and exploit investment opportunities, establish and manage successful business enterprise. Thus, the
re-designed programmes will equip economic ventures on their own. This way, unemployment will be
surmounted, as every graduate will be involved in a productive venture that will yield income and thus
alleviate poverty. (p.57)
Oluruntoba (2010) stated that entrepreneurship training focuses on development, understanding and capacity
building for pursuit of entrepreneurial behaviours, skills and attitudes in widely different contexts. In the United
States of America, there are formal entrepreneurship training programmes that turn out tens and thousands of
prepared, motivated entrepreneurs each year. Moreover, Oluruntoba enjoined that when entrepreneurship
training is incorporated into an education system, the skills acquired would benefit the society and individuals.
In the words of Fluitman and Haan (2002), traditional apprenticeship enhances the development of useful skills
in young people particularly in West African countries. Fluitman and Haan also pointed out that in Gambia, a
vast majority of people who could not find employment had created their own jobs by establishing
micro-enterprises that produce essential goods and provide needed services to a large number of customers. This
means entrepreneurship training given to students can make them become productive. Productivity has to do
with graduates’ performance after leaving the universities. Peretomode (2003) viewed performance as any action
exhibited by an individual which identifies him or her as a member of a group.
The European Union (2002) noted that the main objective of teaching entrepreneurial education especially to
undergraduate students is to increase students’ awareness of self-employment as a career option (the message
being that you can become not only an employee, but also an entrepreneur); promoting the development of
personal qualities that are relevant to entrepreneurships, such as creativity, risk-taking and responsibility, and
providing the technical and business skills that are needed in order to start new venture.
As noted by Kurako (2003), it has been a decision by many tertiary institutions in the United States, Europe, East
Asia and Latin America to design and implement relevant entrepreneurship teaching programmes in their
curriculum. For instance, in American Higher Education, the objectives of entrepreneurship education are:
 To become an expanding area of American college learning
 To become a basic part of what University themselves do
 Meet many of the goals of a quality American undergraduate education
 In fact it is mandatory for all American universities to clearly indicate in their undergraduate programme
the type of entrepreneurship programme to be provided.
In Africa, much is yet to be done in this regard. As reported by Isaac, Visser, Friedrich and Brijlal (2007),
entrepreneurship education in South Africa, started as far back as 1994 through a national curriculum for grade
R-9. In Nigeria, entrepreneurship education especially at the university level is a recent development. By and
large, entrepreneurship education in Nigerian Universities is coming at a time when the country is facing
graduate unemployment. In fact, National Universities Commission (NUC) has gradually made it mandatory for
Universities in Nigeria especially, the new ones to include entrepreneurship education in their undergraduate
curriculum.
McClelland (1962) emphasized in his achievement motivation theory that the purpose of entrepreneurship
training is to help people to develop strong achievement motivation which tends to drive people to become
entrepreneurs. When graduates acquire skills, they can become self reliant and self employed; and this would
reduce the rate of unemployment. The major concern of education therefore is to make man to live and function
effectively in the society. In other words education should be made functional to meet the values of man as
entrepreneurial and to produce job creators and not job seekers (Madumere-Obike & Abraham, 2008).
Osuwa (2006) opined that the current wave of youth restiveness in Nigeria is a typical example of the result of
unemployment. Entrepreneurship training in disciplines such as Engineering, Fine Arts, Technology Education,
Home Economics, among others can bring about students acquisition of skills which would make them
self-reliant and productive in their jobs.
The problem of entrepreneurship training is linked to factors such as lack of facilities, equipment, human
resources and most importantly irrelevant curriculum and lack of practical experience. In 2006, the Federal
Government of Nigeria directed that entrepreneurship training be incorporated as a mandatory component of all
programmes run in our tertiary institutions (Rufa, 2010). The purpose of any entrepreneurial curriculum is to
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equip students with skills that would make them able to create wealth in the era of mass unemployment
(Amaewhale, 2007; Nwangwu, 2007). The curricula for entrepreneurship training programme in the universities
should be student-centred and emphasis should be on vocational and technical skills development. In other
words, the university curriculum should adopt integrated approach, where a section is set aside mainly for
practical training which would make students self-reliant especially in vocational courses.
According to Ekong and William (2006), the curriculum should promote self-initiative learning involving the
whole person of the learner, and that the curriculum should be designed to make students acquire relevant
entrepreneurial skills. Such curriculum will make them to be productive.
On the practical experience by students, it is obvious that the students do not gain enough experience due to
resources problem such as inadequate equipment, laboratory facilities, infrastructures, and funds. This explains
why most of the professional trained graduates are not productive. For Nigerian graduates to be productive there
is need for adequate provision of facilities and equipment such as tools, machines, computer system and so on,
since entrepreneurship training is practical oriented. Kiod (1977) emphasized that students who are able to
practicalise learning are more productive than those exposed to only the theoretical learning.
Using engineering as an example, Oni in Oladapo and Ike (2010) suggested that Nigerian trained engineers can
only be productive if institutional framework and policy environment are appropriately designed. However, the
study by Oladapo and Ike on links between engineering training programmes in tertiary institutions and
graduates’ productivity in Nigeria, found that Nigerian Engineering curricula are too loaded with theories and
rigid, and that the content of training had little relevance to employment.
In Nigeria, there is still the notion that the curricula of many programmes offered in the universities are
irrelevant with regard to changes coming up in the society, and that poor quality and inadequate infrastructure
and equipment contribute to graduate students not acquiring practical skills needed by the labour market. This
study therefore is designed to ascertain the relevance of entrepreneurship training programmes offered in
Nigerian universities to graduates productivity.
2. Statement of the Problem
The society, the government and individual rest their hope on education for individual and national development.
Education that students receive does not seem to equip them with skills that would make them relevant to the
society, thereby resulting into graduates’ unemployment. Graduates from the universities are said to be
unemployable, and where they are employed, the employers need to train and retrain them again before they are
fully absorbed into jobs. On the other hand, where these graduates are employed without training, they appear to
be unproductive. All these have been attributed to poor funding, lack of space, equipment, tools, human
resources and most importantly irrelevant curricula and poor practical work experience. Therefore, the
fundamental problem of this study is to find out if entrepreneurship training in the universities has any relevance
to graduates productivity.
3. Purpose of the Study
The purpose of the study was to ascertain the relevance of entrepreneurial training programme in the universities
to graduates’ productivity in South-South Nigeria. Specifically, the study sought to:
1) Determine the relevance of entrepreneurial contents of university curricula to graduates’ productivity.
2) Examine the relevance of practical experience acquired in the university entrepreneurship training
programme to graduates’ productivity.
3) Determine whether entrepreneurial contents of university curricula and practical experience acquired in the
university entrepreneurship training programme jointly contribute to graduates’ productivity.
4. Hypotheses
The following null hypotheses were formulated to guide the study:
1) Entrepreneurial contents of university curricula are not significantly relevant to graduates’ productivity.
2) Practical experience acquired in the university entrepreneurship training programme is not significantly
relevant to graduates’ productivity.
3) There is no significant joint contribution of entrepreneurial contents of university curricula and practical
experience acquired in the university entrepreneurship training programme to graduates’ productivity.

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5. Methodology
The study employed the descriptive survey design to gather data to examine the relevance of entrepreneurial
training programme in the universities to graduates’ productivity in South South Zone of Nigeria. The area of the
study was the South South Zone of Nigeria made up of six states: Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo
and Rivers. The population consisted of 9,072 NYSC members in year 2011/2012 Batch A in the six states. The
sample size consisted of 1,200 NYSC members randomly selected in the six states for the study.
The research instrument, Entrepreneurial Training Programme in the Universities and Graduates Productivity
Questionnaire (ETPUGPQ), was designed by the researchers for data collection. The instrument was a four-point
rating scale with the following response options:
Strongly Agree (SA) - 4 points
Agree (A) -3 points
Disagree (D) -2 points
Strongly Disagree -1 point
To ascertain the validity of the instrument, the items were critically examined by three experts in Vocational
Education for its face validity. The reliability of the instrument was tested on 30 NYSC members in the states
that did not take part in the main study. Cronbach alpha was used in determining the reliability of the instrument.
Cronbach alpha enabled the assessment of the internal consistency of the instrument which options were strongly
agree, agree, disagree and strongly disagree. The reliability co-efficient stood at 0.85; which was considered high
enough for the use of the instrument. Data collected was analyzed using Multiple Linear Regression at 0.05
alpha levels.
6. Results
Hypothesis 1: Entrepreneurial contents of university curricula are not significantly relevant to graduates’
productivity.

Table 1. Regression Analysis showing Relevance of Entrepreneurial Contents of Curricula to Graduates’
Productivity
Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficient t
B Std Error B eta
1 (constant) 7.538 .492 15.320
Curricula Contents 1.142 .029 .714 39.225*
*Significant at .05 alpha level, t critical = 2.04

Table 1 shows that a coefficient of 1.142 was obtained for the relevance of entrepreneurial contents of university
curricula to graduates productivity in the linear regression model. The calculated t-value of 39.225 at .05 alpha
level is greater than the critical t-value of 2.04. Therefore the null hypothesis is rejected. This means that
entrepreneurial contents of university curricula are significantly relevant to graduates’ productivity.
Hypothesis 2: Practical experience acquired in the university entrepreneurship training programme is not
significantly relevant to graduates’ productivity.

Table 2. Regression Analysis showing Relevance of Practical Experience to Graduates’ Productivity
Model Unstandardized Coefficients Standardized Coefficient

B Std Error B eta t
1 (constant) 7.538 .492 15.32
Practical experiment .326 .031 .194 10.64*
*Significant at .05 alpha level, t critical = 2.04
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Table 2 reveals that a coefficient of .326 was obtained for the contribution of practical experience to graduates
productivity in the linear regression model. A calculated t-value of 10.640 was also obtained at .05 alpha level
which is greater than the critical t-value of 2.04. The null hypothesis is rejected. Hence, practical experience
acquired in the university entrepreneurship training programme is significantly relevant to graduates’
productivity.
Hypothesis 3: There is no significant joint contribution of entrepreneurial contents of university curricula and
practical experience acquired in the university entrepreneurship training programme to graduates’ productivity.

Table 3. Multiple Linear Regression Analysis Result on Joint Contribution of Curricula Relevance and Practical
Experience to Graduates’ Productivity
Model Sum of Squares Df Mean Square F
1 Regression 22885.372 2 11442.686 1104.046*
Residual 12406.087 1197 10.364
Total 35291.459 1199
*Significant at .05 alpha level, R= 0.805, R2 = 0.648, F critical = 3.09, N = 1200

Table 3 shows the analysis of joint contribution of entrepreneurial contents of university curricula and practical
experience acquired in the university entrepreneurship training programme to graduates productivity using
Multiple Linear Regression. The coefficient of determination value (R2) of 0.648 was obtained which shows that
64.8% of the total variation in graduates’ productivity was attributed to joint contribution of entrepreneurial
contents of university curricula and practical experience acquired in the university entrepreneurship training
programme. The F calculated value of 1104.046 was obtained at 0.05 alpha level. Hence the null hypothesis is
rejected, meaning that there is a significant joint contribution of entrepreneurial contents of university curricula
and practical experience acquired in the university entrepreneurship training programme to graduates’
productivity.
7. Discussion
The findings reveal that in Table 1 the coefficient of 1.142 was obtained for the relevance of entrepreneurial
contents of university curricula to graduates productivity, and the calculated t-value was 39.225 which was
greater than the critical t-value of 2.04 at 0.05 alpha levels. This implies that entrepreneurial contents of
university curricula significantly contribute to graduates productivity. This is therefore in line with the views of
Ekong and William (2006) that the curriculum should promote self-initiative learning involving whole person of
the learner, that such curriculum should be designed to make students acquire relevant entrepreneurial skills and
that such curriculum will make them to be productive. This also confirms the view of Amaewhale (2007) and
Nwangwu (2007) that the purpose of entrepreneurial curriculum is to equip students with skills that will make
them able to create wealth in the era of mass unemployment.
The result in Table 2 indicates that the coefficient of .326 was obtained for the relevance of practical experience
gained in the university entrepreneurship training programme to graduates’ productivity. The calculated t-value
of 10.64 was also obtained which is greater than the critical t-value of 2.04 at 0.05 alpha level. This means that
practical experience provided in the university entrepreneurship training programme significantly contributes to
graduates’ productivity. This confirms the views of Kiod (1977) that students who were involved in practical
activities during their learning are more productive than those exposed to only the theoretical aspect of learning.
In Table 3, the result reveals that the coefficient of determination value of 0.648 was obtained. This shows that
64.8% of the total variation in graduates’ productivity was attributed to joint contribution of entrepreneurial
contents of university curricula and practical experience acquired in the university entrepreneurship training
programme. The F-calculated value of 1104.046 was obtained at 0.05 alpha level; meaning that there is a
significant joint contribution of entrepreneurial contents of university curricula and practical experience acquired
in the university entrepreneurship training programme to graduates’ productivity. This however agrees with Oni
in Oladapo and Ike (2010) that Nigerian trained engineers can only be productive, if institutional framework and
policy environment are appropriately designed. In other words entrepreneurial contents of university curricula
and practical experience acquired in the university entrepreneurship training programme contribute to graduates
productivity.
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8. Conclusions
On the strength of the findings of this study, conclusions were made that graduates’ productivity depends on
relevance of the curricula and practical experience given to students undergoing studies. In South South zone of
Nigeria, graduates can be more productive if the entrepreneurship education curriculum is improved and more
room given to practical work in the universities.
9. Recommendations
Based of the findings of this study, the following recommendations are hereby proffered:
1) Nigerian curriculum in the universities should be loaded with more practical work rather than with theories.
2) The curriculum should be more flexible rather than being rigid.
3) The government and National University Commission (NUC) should make it compulsory for faculties
offering professional courses to encourage students’ participation in practical works.
4) Entrepreneurship Education curriculum should be developed to cater for the vast changing needs of the
labour market.
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